Powering up: UK hills could be used as energy 'batteries'

[Andrew]

I wonder how warm it has been this last couple of weeks though ?.

[Andrew]

Cob is very effective in Devon. More fire resistant then straw bales, but both wall types need to be lime rendered to keep the rain out.

[Steve Walker]

No. IIRC it is a 100 ton weight sitting on a column of water. The water is pumped in by electric pump (used to be steam) and left there until needed.

When the bridge needs opening, the bridge is lifted by hydraulic motors, powered by the weight pushing the water. The column stores enough to open the bridge twice.

A simple way to use low powered pumps to slowly store energy, that can then be used rapidly when needed.

[Andrew]

Tower bridge was operated by the high pressure water ring main that opened/closed all the lock gates in docklands nearby. It was also used to power all the big bed lifts are St Bartholomews Hospital. When I worked there in the 1970's this supply was shut down and the hospital had to spend over a million pounds (in 1970 money) to replace all these lifts. Colt Telecom bought the redundant pipework and ran their fibre optic cables inside them.

[Steve Walker]

I don't think Tower Bridge has ever been connected to a ring main. It was built with two steam engines to fill the accumulator. A third was added during WW2. All three were replaced by electric pumps in the 1970s.

[cpslashm]

The noise problem was being addressed when the government cancelled the funding. 40 people at 190mph landing in a field would have been good for a Welsh bus service if mass produced. However, only cities matter in this country, the government said it didn't believe in Faireys and so the company died.

[John Rumm]

Try

[cpslashm]

Each 20 ton block needs it's own truck. Approx 20,000kg per truck. Say 500m high hill. mgh=100MJ = around 28kWh per truck.

36 trucks per MWh. Plus the space at the top and bottom to store them. 18 trucks per MWh down a 1km mine shaft.

Dinorwig has a 500m head and about 8 million tonnes of water. Storage = 9.1GWh, or around 300,000 trucks.

Gravitational potential energy is not energy dense so the mass has to be cheap. You'd be better off with Highview Power on an old coal-fired station.

[tony sayer]

And how he got that scaffolding up there single handed!, amazing bloke!...

[Andrew]

Mentioned in this article, along with other interesting applications

[Steve Walker]

Hydraulic mains were fairly common at the time I think. However, various articles about Tower Bridge, their own website and the couple of tours of it that I been on have never mentioned connection to one. Two steam engines and 6 hydraulic accumulators were installed from the start, with a third engine being installed during WW2. The whole lot being superseded by electric pumps in 1974.

Either connection to the main is missing from most places or that article is in error. I wouldn't know which.

[John Rumm]

I wonder if there is a video of how he gets the staging in place? I have seen him show how to ladder the chimney in the first place, but not lug all the scaffolding up there and get that in place.

[Steve Walker]

I am sure that I have seen one that shows putting the staging up. It is a full length (45 minutes? Hour?) one IIRC.